


Finding the Way

by nothingeverlost



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Priest (1994)
Genre: M/M, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-11
Updated: 2013-05-11
Packaged: 2017-12-11 12:37:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/798802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingeverlost/pseuds/nothingeverlost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m not a very complicated man, sheriff.  In fact, let me put all of my cards on the table.”  Graham was prepared for argument.  Hell, even a gun wouldn’t have surprised him much.  The kiss did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding the Way

**Author's Note:**

> Graham in the movie Priest is played by Robert Carlyle. I don’t know how this pairing happened, exactly, but I ship it hard.

“You want to know a secret, Sheriff?” They rounded the corner, Granny’s B&B coming into sight. The porch light was on, as it always was, but it was late enough that all the other lights were off.

“I think you can find your way now.” Graham felt strangely conspicuous standing under the streetlight, even though he wasn’t doing anything more than showing the stranger to his temporary home away from home after a drink or two too many at the White Rabbit.

“That’s the secret. I could’ve found my way here at any time. I just wanted you to come with me.” It was rare enough for there to be strangers in town, but what was even stranger was that the man’s name was Graham. That, and he looked a bit like Gold but Graham tried not to think about that. 

“I don’t understand. Why?” He rested a hand on his hip, frowning a little in confusion. The man had seemed to sober up pretty quickly on their walk, but Graham figured it was the fresh air and exercise that had helped.

“Because I like your company, and I thought that maybe you’d like more of mine. You were watching me.” He had a confidence that Graham admired, the stranger with his name. It didn’t seem to matter that he was a whole continent away from where he belonged, alone in a town where he didn’t know more about anyone than he’d picked up in a few hours of conversation. He was as relaxed as if he’d always been in Storybrooke and was certain of his place there.

“I’m the sheriff, it’s my job to watch people, especially ones I don’t know anything about or ones that might be suspicious.” It didn’t matter that he was off duty, and had been enjoying a couple of drinks at the time. All strangers in Storybrooke were suspicious.

“I’m not a very complicated man, sheriff. In fact, let me put all of my cards on the table.” Graham was prepared for argument. Hell, even a gun wouldn’t have surprised him much. The kiss did. Graham’s kiss was firm, just a hint of teeth and a touch of tongue. There was no denying the kiss, or confusing it for anything but an invitation “I wanted you to walk me back to my place because I was hoping you might want to come up to my room for the night.”

“I’m not...”

“Interested?” There was disappointment in the other man’s voice, as he shifted his weight to put a little space between them. He was withdrawing, and Graham could feel it. He hated the feeling, even though they’d had all of two short conversations before tonight, and had barely exchanged any words at the bar other than asking the man if he needed help getting to the B&B.

“Available.” They’d never talked about what they were, him and Regina, but Graham knew that the woman would not be pleasant if she found out that he’d had sex with someone else. She wouldn’t be pleasant if she knew he’d even thought about it. It had never occurred to Graham to even wonder about it, until now, or want something more than the arrangement he and Regina had.

The arrangement he’d never remembered making. “It’s complicated.”

“Somehow it always is. I’m sorry about that, Graham, I really am. I would have liked to get to know you a little better, before I left town.” A firm hand was pressed to his chest, the warmth something he could feel even through his shirt. “While you’ve been watching me, I’ve been watching you. I know you’re a good man, as well as a good looking one. I wish you the best.”

He was crossing the street before Graham unfroze enough to think of anything to say. Shouting after the traveler would have only drawn attention to himself, and that was rarely a good idea. All he could do was watch the man walk away, a tight ball of regret in his stomach.

One night. No expectation, no manipulation, no commitment. One night with someone he was attracted to, who caught his attention like no one had before, not that he remembered. One night only, in the bed of the man who wasn’t much more than a stranger, and yet seemed to understand him more than Regina ever could.

Graham was half a block away when he turned and jogged back, slipping into the darkened B&B. It was stupid and impulsive, but that didn’t stop him from going up the stairs and staring at the light under the door to room three. So far as he knew no one else was staying at the inn, so that had to be Graham Hughes’ room. The room he should be avoiding. 

He knocked. 

When the door was opened a moment later it was obvious that he’d had been right about the room. The man that greeted him stood in nothing but a pair of jeans, the shirt and coat that he’d been wearing only minutes ago flung over a chair in the corner. He was even thinner than Graham had expected, now that the layers had been stripped away, but with a wiry strength that didn’t surprise him at all. “I shouldn’t be here.”

“Do you want to be here?” He stood almost impossibly still, his hand on the doorknob, his brown eyes barely blinking. Waiting.

“I don’t know what I want. I know that I don’t want to leave.” A month ago he didn’t remember ever questioning anything, and then Emma came to town and he’d made her his deputy even knowing how Regina felt. And now his feet felt glued to the floor of Granny’s hallway and his heart was racing. 

“Then don’t.” A hand pressed to the back of his neck was all he felt before Graham’s lips were on his, a kiss that was surprisingly tender and distracting enough that he didn’t even notice he’d walked forward into the room until the door shut behind him. “Stay.”

“I’ve never done anything like this.” He leaned against the wall, looking up and swallowing hard. He’d been in this room before, but everything looked different. Everything felt different.

“Don’t think about it too much, Sheriff. Just feel. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” The shirt that had been too tight at his neck was suddenly loosened, the material that had been rubbing his skin replaced by lips, then a tongue. He moaned as Graham nipped at the base of his neck.

“Harder.” He didn’t care if it left a mark. He hoped it did, that he’d have something to remember the night by. He wanted to look in the mirror and see marks on his body, and know that it wasn’t a dream. It was real, and more importantly it was his decision. Graham might have invited him upstairs, but he was the one who made the choice. “I want to feel you. I want to _feel_.”

“Let’s get you out of these clothes then, yeah?” There was something comforting in the voice that didn’t sound like anyone elses in Storybrooke, the accent both foreign and familiar. Graham nodded and shrugged out of his leather coat, glancing down to see that his shirt was already almost unbuttoned. Within seconds his shirt was on the ground as well, and they both stood facing each other in nothing but jeans. Graham’s only advantage was that he still had his shoes on.

“You’ve done this before.” Kneeling to unlace his shoes put him in a rather interesting position as he looked up at Graham and the obvious evidence that the man was interested in more than conversation.

“If you mean shagging a bloke, yeah. If you mean shagging a bloke I only recently met, then yeah, that too. Life’s too short to wait for what you want. I’m clean, test wise.” Graham looked up, and noted that the man was watching him carefully.

“That’s not what I meant. I mean I wasn’t worried about that. I’m just... I guess I just wanted to know that one of us knows what the hell is going on.” He should have had less to drink at the bar. Or more. His thinking was fuzzy but he was still thinking and Graham was right; he just wanted to feel.

“I have the feeling that you’ll pick things up pretty quick, sheriff.” With a laugh Graham tugged him up, pulling him in the direction of the bed. He sat on the edge of the mattress, pulling the sheriff closer, his hands splayed against the more hesitant man’s belly. “If you don’t like something, all you have to do is tell me. And if you like it, well I’m sure you can figure out where to go from there.”

“I like your hands.” It was, perhaps, the first thing he’d noticed other than the fact that the man was a stranger in town. He’d been eating a burger at the diner, and there had been something about the way his fingers held the sandwich, and the way he drummed them on the table while he’d waited for his bill; not like he was annoyed, but just an absent minded gesture. Now the fingers of one of those hands played with the snap of his jeans, and Graham couldn’t keep his eyes off of them.

“That’s a good thing, since I happen to like touching you.” Graham’s breath caught in the back of his throat, and for a moment the only sound in the room was metal against metal as his zipper was tugged down. It didn’t take much to push the denim over his hips, sending the jeans down to the floor, pooling at his feet. His briefs headed the same direction, leaving him with nothing to hide. He was already half hard; when slender fingers wrapped around his length he knew it wouldn’t be long before the blood all rushed down to his cock. 

“Not many people do. Touch me, I mean.” Regina did, when they shared a bed, a shower, or when she was in the mood, a wall or the desk in her office. Outside of sex, though, there was little touching, and few other people had any reason to, unless he was arresting them. leroy’s half hearted attempts at resisting hardly counted as touch.

“That’s a shame. Touching is one of the best ways to communicate. You can convey affection, support, desire.” His voice was mesmerizing as he moved his hand up and down in time to his words, looking up at Graham. His eyes communicated as much as his touch did. With his free hand he found one of Graham’s hands, linking their fingers and moving them together up to his hair. It was so soft. 

“You can ask a question, with touch.” His hand stilled as he leaned forward, touching the tip of his tongue to Graham’s cock. Just a single touch, so light he might have imagined it if he wasn’t looking down, if he hadn’t seen Graham’s tongue slip from between his lips. After a breath, warm against his skin, the same tongue was swirled around the swollen head of his erection. A question, asked only by touch, just as he’d promised.

“Please. Yes.” Graham’s hand slipped from his, leaving him with a hand in the man’s soft hair. The other held on to one bedpost, keeping him steady. He wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol or the sight of his own cock in someone else’s mouth that had him weaving to one side. He’d be damned if he’d let himself fall, not when he had such a good reason to stand.

“Don’t stop.” A hand on his arse told him that Graham had no intention of doing anything of the sort. Rather than stopping he moved faster, lips firm against his cock as he sucked, a little lighter as he took Graham into his mouth again. His sensitive head was against the back of Graham’s throat, wet fire surrounding him. His hips flexed, and Graham restrained himself with sheer force of will from thrusting. His hand slipped from the short, silky hair to the man’s shoulder, firm muscles rippling under his grasp. He could feel the need coiling tightly, every nerve in his body on end. Never in his life had he ever felt this much, all at once. And then hands cupped his balls, and there were nothing he could do but trumble as he spent himself into Graham’s mouth.

“First course,” Graham said with a cheeky grin, looking up at the sheriff. His thumb stroked the skin just above the hip of the still trembling man, the small motion centering him somehow and letting him breathe. “It’s wetted my appetite for what I really want.” 

“Me.” He wasn’t the type to be coy, and Graham’s darkened gaze made his meaning impossible to deny.

“If you don’t object to being had.” Graham tugged on his ass, pulling him forward until the slight stubble on his chin scraped lightly against him as Graham nodded. “I really want to fuck you, sheriff.”

The heat in the man’s voice was enough to have Graham’s breath stick in his throat. Despite having just come a new jolt of energy pooled in his groin. He was a convenience to Regina. She appreciated his body, but had little more feeling for him than she did her car; he got her where she wanted to be, and when she didn’t need him she ignored him. The look in the brown eyes looking up at him was fire, and there was no ice behind it. No calculation. Graham wanted him.

“I’ve never...” His voice cracked, and Graham took a breath. He was nervous, but not scared. He trusted Graham, and maybe that was strange considering that he’d only met the man a few days ago and he was still a virtual stranger, but he did. “Show me what it can be like?”

“I’ll be gentle.” Graham stood, his already undone jeans falling the ground. They stood so close that his erection pressed against the other man’s thigh.

The sheriff shook his head. “I don’t need gentle. I don’t want you to be anything different for me. I want to know who you are.”

If it was only going to be one night he wanted it to be real.

“This is who I am.” Graham patted his own chest with an open hand. “And this is what I want.” His hand turned at the wrist, coming to rest over the taller man’s chest, just above the sheriff’s heart beat. It stayed there while Graham kissed him, head tilted back as he drew the other man’s upper lip into his mouth, sucking on it lightly and exploring the underside with his tongue. His continued exploration, slow and thorough, had Graham moaning with need. It was more than physical, though he wanted the stranger like he never remembered wanting before. Like a memory at the edge of his conscious mind, he felt but did not understand what he needed. 

“More.” He tugged at the more slender man’s hips, grinding their pelvises together, searching for just what it was he needed. It wasn’t enough. Graham ducked his head, nuzzling the traveler’s neck. Impulse had him baring his teeth, nipping at the skin, then biting hard enough to leave a bruise. Closer.

“That’s going to leave an interesting mark in the morning,” Graham said with a chuckle, brushing over the mark with a finger.

“I shouldn’t have...” He looked down, lips pressed together. He’d never left a mark on Regina; it never would have occurred to him. And yet beneath the confusion there was a touch of pride, and rightness.

“Hey, I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it. I told you to say if there was anything you didn’t like tonight. I can do the same, and haven’t yet. I like knowing that I’ll look in my mirror tomorrow and see the mark you left. This town of yours is a strange place, and tonight might feel like a dream except that this makes it real.” He tilted his neck the the side, and there were no shadows for the mark to hide in. It was red, almost like a blush except for the darker marks. His teeth. 

“This is real.” It seemed as if his whole life was a dream, but not this. Graham brushed his mouth against the bruise, an open-mouthed kiss. “Show me how real it can be.”

“That I can do. Make yourself comfortable on the bed, yeah? I need to get a couple of things.” Graham pulled back the covers on the bed and laid down on his stomach, turning his head to watch as the other man opened the drawer on the bedside table to pull out a bottle of lube and a foil packet. He smirked as he tore open the condom’s wrapper, the cheeky bugger. “Never leave home without it.”

Graham’s fingers dug into the bed as he watched the condom being rolled on and the gloss of the lube as it coated fingers, then the condom. “Fuck.”

“There’s a difference between not being gentle and being too rough. I wouldn’t want to hurt you.” Graham knelt behind him; the sheriff flinched at the unexpected cold as something liquid was drizzled over his tailbone, dripping down between his cheeks. Lube, he realized almost immediately. It didn’t stay cold, not when Graham massaged it into his skin with two fingers, focusing on the tight pucker of muscles. 

“Trust you.” He told his body to relax, though it wasn’t easy to obey the mental command at the intrusion of a single slick finger. A drop of sweat trickled down his neck. There wasn’t any pain, just a strangeness. 

“You’re so fucking tight. I kind of like knowing that no one else has done this to you before, that even when I leave you’ll still remember me as the first man you were ever with.” A second finger joined the first, moving in tandem, stretching him. Graham was torn between pulling away and trying to somehow get more.

“I like the present better than the future or the past.” Graham was only in town for a few days. Not long enough. 

“I’m rather fond of the future myself. The immediate future.” A hand wrapped around Graham’s cock, pumping it slowly. “Are you ready for me?”

“I think I’ve been ready since you walked into the Rabbit Hole tonight.” Or maybe since he’d arrived in town. Graham understood now that it was more than professional curiosity that had him watching the man. “Don’t make me wait any longer.”

“No reason to make either of us wait.” Graham’s hand continued to stroke him, arousing him. “I like the feel of you against my hand almost as much as I liked having you in my mouth, but what I really want, sheriff, is to feel you come while I’m inside of you.”

“Fuck me,” he growled, thrusting backwards, grinding his ass against Graham’s cock. He couldn’t wait any longer, not when he’d been waiting for days. Years. A lifetime. 

“I like this side of you. Makes me think it might be nice to stick around long enough to have you fuck me too.” He eased into Graham’s body slowly, holding his hip with one hand and stroking his erection with the other. Graham wasn’t sure if he was thankful for the distraction or not. There was pleasure and a dull ache, but most of all a tightness. He closed his eyes and tried to feel everything. 

“Remember to breathe. I’d hate to explain to your deputy how I killed you with sex.” Graham’s voice was a whisper in his ear, his breath warm against the side of his neck. The sheriff shivered.

“Bring her doughnuts, it will make things go-” his eyes flew open and he had to bite his lip to keep from shouting. Everything was bright white light, and for a moment any thought fled from him mind. His breath caught, and when it returned he was panting. Graham said something, but he didn’t make out the words, just the gentle tone and the warm accent. Everything was focused on the fire deep inside, the intensity almost overwhelming. He grasped for something to hold onto, as if gravity alone wasn’t enough to keep him in the bed.

A hand covered his, holding firm. “I’ve got you.”

“Graham,” he gasped.

“It’s supposed to feel like this.” The validation was the last thing spoken for some time, energy focused elsewhere. It wasn’t until Graham’s body tensed, nails digging into the mattress, that his low whimper was answered by a low moan. “Come for me, sheriff.”

He smothered his cry with the pillow as he spent himself onto the bed. Graham collapsed on top of him, his own breathing hard. They stayed there, both panting, for long minutes before Graham carefully withdrew himself. Though he was sore, the sheriff mourned the loss, the connection, especially when the man got out of the bed. He returned a minute later with a towel and a warm washcloth.

“Wet spot,” he said with a relaxed grin as he tossed the towel on the bed. “That way we don’t have to argue who sleeps where. If you’re staying, I mean.” He sat on the edge of the bed, wiping Graham gently with the cloth.

“I have to leave early if I want to show up to work in clothes that aren’t the same ones I left in.” He tried to keep from wincing as he rolled over. 

“You don’t have to, if you don’t want...”

“I want.” He covered Graham’s hand with his own. 

“Good.” He took the cloth back into the bathroom and returned to the bed after turning out the light. As Graham fell asleep with the other man’s hand on his hip, a small voice whispered that maybe he’d figured out what was missing in his life.


End file.
